"Women should not always have to die. Girls should not be born into death".

As far as I could tell Womb city is Tlotlo Tsamaase's first full length novel. It's about the patriarchy and how far men are willing to go to keep their women compliant (spoiler not spoiler: pretty damn far). It's unabashedly the novel Xe wanted to write. It isn't afraid to be weird, to discuss difficult topics. And I sincerely applaud to that.

Given the premise and the Trigger Warning list in the beginning I expected the book to be more dark than it was and less action-focused. Action was well-written and fast and I enjoyed my time with it. It somehow manages not only to merge consents from different genres but also make it all sound coherent. I appreciate the fact that most of the lore we learn through Nelah's comments to the world around her and not just info dumps. It's always nice to see fiction play with readers' expectations.

I can't say much about plot without spoilers. It's pretty much a character-focused book. I appreciated the journey Nelah and other characters went through and her character development.

Thank you Netgalley and Erewhon Books for providing me with digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the start of this book, but it just kept going in too many directions and had too many elements for one book. There were a ton of awesome ideas, but we just ended up focusing too much on those maaaany ideas and world building rather than the characters and the emotional impact of events. I definitely see potential in this author and will be interested in reading more of their work in the future, this one was just a miss for me

Womb City takes place in a future where minds can be transferred to new bodies, and where a patriarchal system has created a society that seems like heaven to some, and yet hides hideous truths beneath the surface. It's cyberpunk, it's science fiction, it's a thriller, it's a dystopian vision, and in the end, it transcends any easy genre-classification and goes beyond all those labels. The book really finds its pace and footing once it deals with a horrific murder and its aftermath, and the conclusion to the story goes somewhere I did not expect at all when I began reading.

Initial Thoughts:

This was such a creative story! But ultimately, it was bogged down by convoluted ideas that didn't quite seem to connect with each other without extensive explanations and talking at the reader.

Detailed Review:

There were way too many elements and influences from various media (Minority Report, a bit of Handmaid's Tale if you squint, The Final Cut [that Robin Williams sci-fi movie], insert generic horror story with a Final Girl, insert another horror story with an evil sentient creature) which, when combined together, came to create a Frankenstein's monster of a novel.

With that being said, I was pretty disappointed with this novel. It started out well enough, with familiar sci-fi elements such as an overarching government/police state that's patriarchal in nature. The misogyny was disgusting. I felt terrible for the FMC, Nelah, and was rooting for her for the first quarter to one-third of the book.

But then, everything went downhill after that. The author threw in so many ideas all at once that it was really difficult to keep track of each sci-fi concept. The explanation for the body hopping scheme went on and on.

I thought I understood the basics of body hopping (souls are transferred to another body when their "life" expires for a total of ~200 years on Earth; criminal souls/minds are imprisoned forever; etc.), but the author kept adding more and more details to the point where I had no idea what the purpose of body hopping was anymore.

Nelah was also an irritating FMC. I stopped having any sympathy for her after I realized that she wanted so badly to prescribe to traditional societal values (having a husband and child) while having an affair on the side.

She kept complaining about her husband's misogyny, and the society's misogyny in general, but not once did she think about leaving her husband. They're an excellent example of that couple who has a baby to fix their relationship. I was sick and tired of it less than halfway into the story.

As a masochist, I love reading about futuristic misogynist societies in sci-fi stories, but this was done so inexpertly without any subtlety that it was hard to root for the FMC and her terrible situation. She seemed privileged enough that she could've just left her marriage and strike out on her own. But nope. All she did was complain and cheat.

After the midpoint, the story's ideas seriously became too convoluted to the point where Nelah and her lover, Jan, seemed to talk at the reader to explain what was going on. It felt really patronizing and just plain odd to read.

The story does pick up after the 30% mark though, but the first 30% felt like such an uphill slog. After that, the tone changes completely and at times becomes a horror thriller, with strange lulls in between for exposition and character building.

And the explanation for why Moremi wanted revenge? The entire thing plunged right into straight up fantasy that it took me out of the story. I was expecting to stay strictly within the sci-fi horror genre, so it felt like the author couldn't come up with a logical explanation for why certain things were happening.

And honestly, Moremi's story sounded way more interesting than Nelah's story. At least I could sympathize with her.

I don't know. This entire story was very creative, but ultimately, it ended up being a frustrating read.

Thank you to Erewhon Books and NetGalley for this arc.

This book is wild, and not really in a good way.

I am so disappointed. I was really excited when I got this ARC, the cover art is horrifyingly perfect, and I’ve really been impressed with other recent work by African authors, so it breaks my heart a little to write this.

From the publisher, and what I was hoping for:
“This genre-bending Africanfuturist horror novel blends The Handmaid’s Tale with Get Out in an adrenaline-packed, cyberpunk body-hopping ghost story exploring motherhood, memory, and a woman’s right to her own body.”

What we got: a mishmash of an overly complicated backstory and world that wasted massive amounts of time and space, pulling the reader out of the action. Long Bond villain-esk monologues to try and make this convoluted story make sense. Preaching passages to try and make sure the reader gets the deeper message, which actually cheapens the message. Really weird simplistic dialog, threadbare characters, double and triple and quadruple double crosses that are just ridiculous, and a voice that is well strange… I’m putting an example of one short passage in the photos, yeah so many womb related imagery, that was just kind of gross.

I really wanted to DNF this book early on, but I held on to finish. All in the hope that maybe there was an anti-colonial or some other theme that would tie up the earlier roughness into something coherent and challenging, but no it was just hard to read and the ending was not satisfying or original.

Womb City is author Tlotlo Tsamaase’s debut novel; having previously read xer short fiction in a few anthologies (Africa Risen and The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction) I was very happy to read xer first longer work.

It is certainly a genre-bender – what starts as a dystopian sci-fi with themes of surveillance and biotech takes a turn toward fast-paced horror, with the end of the book feeling like an entirely different text than the beginning. It is also ambitious – there are a lot of themes here, and strong commentary on bodily autonomy, the relationship between memory and identity, and the ways that those harmed by patriarchy also serve to maintain it. I liked a lot about this. What didn’t quite work for me was how jarring the shift in tone is, and some of the pacing; toward the end, the pace was so fast that it definitely felt like a few too many ideas were squished in for the page count. Some parts felt a bit too information-heavy – the world-building is fascinating and complex, but in some places explained too clearly to the reader, resulting in ‘info-dump’ that often wasn’t necessary and disrupted the dialogue. All that said, though, I found the plot exciting and couldn’t put it down.

Content warnings: pretty much all of them – body horror, gore, blood, violence, injury detail, death, murder, gun violence, rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, drug abuse, death of a parent, suicide, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, medical content, medical trauma, human trafficking.

Thank you to Erewhon Books, Kensington Books, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.

This book had so much promise and it went in 400 different directions by the end. I could not finish the last 50 pages because of the utter ridiculousness that occurred in “wrapping up” loose ends. A huge ick.

Rating "Womb City" by Tlotlo Tsamaase was a challenging task for me as it didn't neatly fit into a specific star category, ultimately settling at 2.5 stars.

The book traverses multiple themes, including equality, feminism, and individuality in a society driven by collective actions for the greater good. It commences as a dystopian sci-fi narrative, later transitioning into a somewhat absurd religious horror tale. This genre shift, however, felt abrupt, making the reading experience somewhat disjointed. The characters, particularly Nelah, suffered from this sudden change, rendering her two-dimensional, and her thought process throughout the story lacked consistency.

The challenge of depicting consciousness in other bodies translated into a somewhat nightmarish reading experience, circling back on itself and diluting the meaning of the narrative.

The writing left some desires unmet, as moments that could have been enriched with explanations and nuanced plot development were overshadowed by mundane expressions. Urgency was lacking in certain parts where it should have prevailed. The plot twist involving Nelah's husband felt insignificant due to insufficient prior investment in his character. With a predominant focus on Jan and Nelah, her husband became a mere background figure.

The book's length and ambitious inclusion of various elements might have contributed to its struggles. It could potentially have benefited from a more extended format, perhaps as a multi-sequel series, to delve deeper into its complex themes.

Womb City was definitely one of the most unique books I read this year. This futuristic society in Botswana has a very low crime rate but many of its citizens are under heavy surveillance. In this world, people can body hop, trading their old bodies for new ones to extend their lifetimes and create new opportunities for themselves. This brings forth discussions among the characters about race and gender. Though one can change their outward appearance by inhabiting another’s body, their soul seems to be tied to their original self.

This books world building was very complex and there was a lot to take in at the start of the book. By following the life of the main character Nelah, the reader learns about the challenges she faces as a microchipped woman who is controlled by her husband. The microchip, which allows the government to monitor her actions to ensure she is an upstanding citizen, limits her autonomy. Though she is a successful hard working individual, her own body holds her back from true happiness. When she decides to have a child, she hopes this will allow her to find purpose in life.

This book is heavy with dialogue between characters and inner monologue by the main character. I enjoyed many of the discussions between the characters as they worked together despite their clashing perspectives of the world they lived in. However, I do find that there was a lot of information to take in about this world and it was challenging to read at first. It took a while for me to be able to understand how this society worked. I found it interesting that the reader was given the chance to see how even in a futuristic society, people are still struggling with similar issues we face today. It brings forth the discussion that despite technological advancements and the ability to extend humans lifetimes, there is still inequality. Even in this world, where body hopping exists, there is still the ideal body one works to inhabit to achieve autonomy.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing the ARC.

This book is a combination of Altered Carbon's mind digitization / body exchange world and Minority Report's preemptive crime prevention theme, but it is much more. For my taste, we switch genres too many times (we start with basic sci-fi, which turns into ghostly horror, and then we turn back to some supernatural dystopia), and the topics touched are not covered either, rather they are told to the reader. Characters talk unnaturally directly about the world's sexism and racism, for example. It's also hard to get attached to the characters, the two main men in Nelah's life, her husband and her lover, are all written in such a way that any sane person would get to know them with a high-speed reader, which is fine, but because of this, it's hard for me to feel any sympathy for Nelah's first 20% towards her situation where she laments between the two men. And this is just one of the points that I understand why the author uses the way xe does, but they caused a negative effect on me (Nelah's brother and Moremi's character is comically evil sometimes, for example).

I hope the book finds its readers, I liked its world building, but overall I didn't enjoy it.

The premise of this is so incredibly interesting and I loved the conversations that were being discussed within this. Unfortunately, the pacing and writing were two factors that I struggled with the most. It didn't feel as if there was much that was left unsaid. Everything seems to laid out very plainly and held the reader's hand. It was interesting and held my interest very quickly, there were just so many times that I genuinely felt pulled out of the story due to these issues.

This book was part bleak, part realistic and part total fiction, and all parts a worthy read. I think anyone who enjoys things like Black Mirror or Cyberpunk will find this an enthralling read. My only issue was the slight pacing issues near the middle of the book, but the rest was wonderful.

I received this copy of Womb City, for an honest review, from NetGalley and Kensington Books, Erewhon Books.

There are just so many things about this book that, on paper, sound amazing. The themes, the commentary, the genre - all of that add up to what I thought was going to be an impactful, powerful, and highly engaging read. This book only takes place in a couple days! We’re constantly reminded of the timeline at the start of each chapter. I was fully prepared to brag about this book to everyone. However, there are a couple things that just fell flat for me and, ultimately, didn’t make this the perfect book for me.

The book started out pretty great. The idea of body hopping, surveillance, and commentary on misogyny rang strong. Feeling trapped and isolated in your own body and not having fully autonomy are themes that are, I’m sure, will be important in the future, but are also very relevant now. The cool thing about science fiction books is that, while they are set in the future (oftentimes), they are commenting and reflecting issues of the current day.

When I thought I had things figured out and knew the projection of the story, the author took a completely different turn. It led to an unpredictability that is sometimes hard to find. However, it also led to issues I had. It seemed that once we got our bearings of our environment and an understanding of what is going on, we had more thrown at us and more suspension of reality was required. This happened several times. More than several times. It happened enough times, complete shift in focus, storyline, and belief, that it was whiplash for me.

I appreciated the commentary, as mentioned before, but the constant shifting slowly wore me down to the point of not caring about any of the characters or about the world. (Which is sad, as the future of this world is dependent on what happens in this story.) I can see how some people rated this very high, but I can also see how some people rated this low. Before I read this book, I looked at the reviews, and it seemed like people either really loved it or people were aggressively against it.

I do find myself in the middle only because the beginning had so much promise. I think if the book was divided into parts, it would have been “easier” to change drastically along with the book. This book just isn’t for me, but I’m not shitting on it for others. I can see how folks would really enjoy the constant changing, shifting, and inability to guess at what is going to happen next. I enjoyed the science fiction, horror, and cultural merge Tsamaase used and can see folks really clinging on to this.

By the end, I was ready to be done.

I was unable to finish this book . Though I thought the premise of the story was amazing ,when I read it I found it to be a lot of world building and trying to understand what was going on and that just never rounded out for me. I think I will buy this book and retry gain later but as of now it wasn’t easy for me to continue .

In what's probably going to be my most brutal review of a book this year, Womb City was a pure disappointment.

This book is reminiscent of Altered Carbon (in a good way), Minority Report (in a good way), and The Hunger Games (in a bad, confusing way). The main character lives in a "utopia" where people immortal - their consciousnesses are guaranteed 200 (or is it 700? The author seems unsure across the narrative) years of life across multiple bodies but transferring across bodies causes memory loss (for the main character but seemingly not for her husband or her lover). The main character is under extreme surveillance from a computer chip implanted in her neck because the last host of her body committed a crime - except for when the woman she murdered (her ghost? Her spirit? Her physical body?) starts to hunt her and her loved ones down for revenge. Then it turns out this is orchestrated by the hyper (but secretly) religious government to appease one (of many?) god(s) in The Murder Trials. Then the main character becomes the god and... the plot ends. Add on to this the main character's overly-numerous feminist rants (appreciated but definitely forced into the narrative too many times in the first third of the book - maybe several times per chapter?) and the extreme passiveness and helplessness of the main character, almost nothing about this book was an enjoyable read.

I was hoping for a lot more out of this book; I'm looking forward to seeing if the author will continue to improve their writing and release more books because the premise felt so revolutionary that I want to see more.

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!


- a thrilling dystopian novel with a strong protagonist, high stakes, and a strong voice. i wish i could've enjoyed this way more, but for what it was, it was enjoyable and thrilling.

DNF @36%

At first, I liked the concept. But I don't like the main character or where her storyline is at anymore.

I'm sorry to say I absolutely did not connect with this book whatsoever.

The description was intriguing and I liked the cover but I struggled almost immediately when I started reading it and it did not get better.

While I found the world building and concept intriguing the whole book left me cold. I thought the writing was terrible and a lot of direct "telling" not showing as if the writer didn't trust the audience to pick up on things.

TW: murder, abuse, torture, miscarriages

This is an amazing work of Afro-futurism. In future Botswana where an old body can be cast aside for a new one, when youth can be forsaken for wealth and memories stored in a database, Nelah is struggling through a trouble marriage, strained family dynamics and impaired fertility when she and her lover are involved in a hit and run. Things take a dramatic turn and everything we know and think about our bodies and identities is questioned. This read left me stunned and genuinely surprised- which is hard to do considering our current reality is stranger than fiction.

I felt very disappointed because I was so excited to read this book. However, it’s been hugely let down by what I believe to be a massive failure on the part of the editing team that’s made it almost completely unreadable. The premise is ingenious: with consciousness-transplanting technology, people are able to live multiple lifetimes by switching bodies, meaning that possessing a body is a commodity. People inhabiting bodies that have previously committed crimes are microchipped, like our protagonist Nelah. The interplay of family, identity, consciousness, and relationships within this societal framework is fascinating.
The problems I have with this book are primarily writing problems that were never fixed in the editing process. Horribly incorrect sentence structure and punctuation lead to lack of clarity in plot points. Informational dumping lasts for pages and is strangely placed in the middle of people’s conversations. The worldbuilding is extremely interesting but very clunky in its delivery. The main character continually rehashed plot points in her mind and how they made her feel, which became unbelievably repetitive. I think this book would have been a lot more effective if the worldbuilding and relationships were delivered more along the lines of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” where the reader is sort of forced to guess at why and how societal structures came to be, instead of being force-fed clumsy exposition. Again I think this could have been an absolutely incredible novel with some sentence-level edits and trimming, so it’s very disappointing to see such a promising novel under-deliver.